Several in Labour Want Starmer Removed. The Prime Minister Informs Me He'll Endure – while the Economic Outlook Is Set to Improve.

"I'll be positioned in the same seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, noting that if the discussion proceeded smoothly, he might welcome us into Downing Street for a follow-up conversation in the coming year.

There is never truly break for prime ministers. Shortly before our chat started, the PM had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was considerably lengthier than typical, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the year starts, Starmer appears to have had a degree of a reboot. Maybe even just some relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly appeared to have put him in improved morale than at the saggy conclusion of 2025, a terrible year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his allies being unrealistic if they reckon his political fate are set to improve?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable reality for the leader is that a significant number of his colleagues are convinced he's not very good at his job. Several of them would sooner gamble and remove him in 2026.

However Starmer was rejecting the idea in the interview on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he stated he'd be "assessed at the poll", maintaining nobody would remove his term from him – even if the best chance of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to change its leader.

"We are in the battle of our generation and I plan to lead us," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

The problem for the PM is that he will be judged long before then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to contend, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – to some extent. But although he may be reluctant to admit it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would resign, even if a his MPs challenged him for the job, should those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to explain his unpopularity by saying the electorate was naturally anxious for things to improve. He sought to convince me, and the public, that 2026 would be different.

The economy would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when plans the administration implemented during their first rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't put a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His big message is that soon the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

The PM may have spoken with more energy than I've seen from him for a while – less tense, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite encountering demands from within his own party for a bolder strategy, with much more political vision, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were well-known ones.

Given that he is in such significant political trouble, is a different approach required a change of tack?

No administration, and especially not one that has been unpopular for many months, has everything its own way.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because government is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister admitted that he was sorry for saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when past remarks he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Sir Keir blamed "the system" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is inviting obvious political dangers as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president acquires a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be at ease with such action seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "career-long advocate of international law" but we "just lack the entire story at the moment".

Opponents called for him to criticise the action before we spoke. And the administration is expected to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has always been growing tension in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's doing that, but his new firmer commitment to integrate further with the single market – the huge economic European market – will likely trigger howls that he is breaking his promise never to try to overturn the results that flowed from Brexit.

A move to cosy up to more of the single market will please a faction on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to